


I'd Like That

by Bowieandqueen11



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Home, Humor, Loss, Nostalgia, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29021523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bowieandqueen11/pseuds/Bowieandqueen11
Summary: Joel Miller is finally home :)
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel & Sarah (The Last of Us), Joel (The Last of Us)/Reader, Joel (The Last of Us)/You
Kudos: 21





	I'd Like That

People have always tried to tell Joel Miller to live in the moment. That the past is always gone behind us, a stepping stone into the future, even if it’s not the one we dream or hope for. 

Watching the snow fall lightly down outside his workbench, he’s glad to simply watch the day pass away today. To simply have walked inside his house earlier this morning, with his bundle of wood under his arm, leaving his footprints in the white. He watches them tumble, those feathered crystals, their chaotic flight to form a blanket that could not be more uniform, more orderly, as he leans back in his creaking wooden chair and places his hands behind his head just for a moment. After a moment squinting in the auburn lamp light and blowing a few wood curls away from his knife. he reaches up to scratch at his stubble before opening the latch of his window.

He could never remember feeling a breeze quite as warm, quite as welcome as this one since Sarah was alive.

The sunlight bouncing off the snowy path outside his house sent a warm chill up his spine, like being enveloped in thick caramel they used to pour on the fair apples he bought Sarah back when she was younger.

It reminded him of movie nights with Ellie every Friday night, where she would start off with her feet on his lap, laughing and pointing at the screen and spilling popcorn everywhere as she shoved it into her mouth, only for the night to end with her head on his shoulder, curled up into his warmth.

He hummed lightly as he brushed his knife over the block of wood, focusing back on his wood and refusing to let his mind wander to you in case he got just too distracted.

He leant his elbows back onto his desk, allowing the flannel to roll uncomfortably up his lower arm as his thumb brushed against the model he was making for you as a little surprise. A little thank you, he thought would be nice, for coming into his life. His desk wobbled slightly on its old iron legs, jaunting at at strange angles by his boots. In the grain were flecks of colours, little stains and dips and bumps that made him realise how loved this desk had been before he had arrived, and how it would someday carry on without him. He found himself wondering how many families, how many smiles it had seen, before him.

For a moment he frowned, but as he scratched out the last little details, the final flick of an eye on the little figurine he was holding, he found himself comforted again. Because life, smiles, a family he found, had come back to him in Jackson. And even more surprising, he had found, is that he enjoyed. For the first time in nearly thirty years, he was content. He was home.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels two homely arms wrap around his shoulders and pull his head against the attached chest. Blushing nervously at having been caught so open, so vulnerable, he tries to clear his throat before you turn your face towards your fiancé and see him so affected.

‘I thought I heard you come in around lunch. Why didn’t you waken me?’

‘Huh, well, you need your beauty sleep.’

He only chuckles as you hit him on his shoulder, laughing against the small of his back.

He turns his head slightly to face you.

‘Tommy says hi, by the way. And that you owe him ten bucks for some bet the two of you made?’

Your lips move over to linger by his cheek, brushing against his skin and letting his stubble tickle you in a familiar way.

‘Ah, well that would be who would fall asleep first during Point Break. He was so sure it would be Ellie, but as usual, I was right.’

‘Hey, I’d had a long patrol.’

‘And it won us ten bucks, so thank you’, you laugh, punctuating the last word with a kiss to his his forehead. ‘Now come on, get up, our song is playing.’

‘I don’t hear any music.’

‘Well Ellie’s out playing Take On Me on the porch and I think it’s awfully romantic. Even if she is only doing it because she thinks Dina and Jesse will hear.’

‘I knew Jesse was looking at her-’

‘Ah ah ah’, you whisper, pressing a finger to his lips with a disapproving look, ‘just dance with me.’

‘I’d like that’, he admits out loud, his breath warm over your fingertip as his lips curl into a twinking grin.

He allowed you to pull him up with only one groan, a new record, you counted, moving his hands until they rested comfortably against your hips. As you snaked your own around his shoulders again, biting the edge of your lip at the look of endearment that swirled in his eyes as they scanned over your features, the guitar notes finally began to float through the air and fill the room. Swaying together, rather clumsily, you couldn’t count how many he had squished his foot on top of your own. Still, he smiled brightly as your heels clicked over the cold floor.

It was perfect. All that mattered was the person in front of him, and the girl sitting down below, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. The slow music twirled like thread around the two of you, as you leant forward to rest your head on his chest, hearing it vibrate with his little hmphs as he pulled you protectively tighter against him, a little habit he hadn’t been able to kick yet despite the years living in Jackson. It was just so him, so Joel, you thought, as you breathed in his scent of coffee grounds and pine.

‘What were you carving, by the way?’

‘I-uh- I made you a giraffe.’

‘Look at you, turning into an old sap, Joel Miller.’


End file.
